Designing electronic forms is a complex process which requires intimate knowledge of the business needs satisfied by the form, as well as the technical details of the technology that renders the form.
A common format which is used to present electronic forms is the Portable Document Format (PDF). The PDF utilises a specification for a Form Definition Language known as XFA (XML Forms Architecture, also known as XDP).
A design tool which is available for generating electronic forms in the PDF format is Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES. This design tool allows a developer to design forms conforming to the XFA specification, in a graphic design environment. These forms can be deployed as a PDF file which in turn contains the XFA form definition. A run-time environment, included as part of Adobe Reader/Acrobat, allows end users to open and interact with XFA forms.
XFA is an XML-based description of the layout and behaviour of a form. Each field on the form is described by a snippet of XML, containing many sub-elements and attributes. The form is made up of a collection of these objects. The containership of objects and their relative positions also contributes to the layout and functionality of the form when it runs within Acrobat Reader or Acrobat. The behaviour of the form at runtime can be controlled through the use of properties against the objects such as mandatory or display format properties, and also through the use of programming languages supported by the XFA specification.
However, the generation of XFA forms using current design tools has a number of problems.
In particular, creation of objects and forms that look and function in a particular way is difficult, because of the large number of element and attribute values that need to be configured for each object in order to achieve the desired effect. When a form is required that satisfies organisational specifications, such as the use of an organisation's corporate colours, it is necessary that each object in the form is changed individually which can be a tedious task.
Additionally, the layout of fields in the form is a complex relationship between their individual properties, the container that contains the object, and the other objects within the same container. This complexity makes it difficult to obtain the desired effect, or to predict the form's behaviour.
Whilst the use of re-usable objects has been provided in design tools for generating electronic forms, re-usable objects suffer from the problem of being copied into the form rather than referenced. In the event that the re-usable object in each form needs to be altered, each re-usable object in each form must be modified which is time consuming, particularly where an organisation has a large number of forms.
Re-usable fragments have also been made available in design tools for electronic forms. However, re-usable objects also suffer from the problem of being completely self-contained thereby preventing the user to modify or change properties of the re-usable fragment whilst designing the form. Therefore, if a re-usable fragment needs to be changed, it is necessary to delete the re-usable fragment and insert an altered re-usable fragment which again is time consuming.
Therefore, there is a need for a method, system, computer program product, client processing system, and/or server processing system for generating electronic forms which overcomes or at least ameliorates one or more of the above mentioned disadvantages, or provides a commercial alternative.
The reference in this specification to any prior publication (or information derived from the prior publication), or to any matter which is known, is not, and should not be taken as an acknowledgment or admission or any form of suggestion that the prior publication (or information derived from the prior publication) or known matter forms part of the common general knowledge in the field of endeavour to which this specification relates.